Movie Mom

Movies by the Numbers — A Formula for Editing Film

New Scientist Magazine reports on a study by a psychologist of 150 movies and found that “the more recent they were, the more closely their shot lengths tended to follow a mathematical pattern that also describes human attention spans.” Based on a 1990’s study that turned the attention span data of hundreds of volunteers into “a series of waves using a mathematical trick called a Fourier transform,” this paper applied that formula to the edits of popular movies. The scientist, too-perfectly named Professor James Cutting, found that having shots of similar length recur in a regular pattern throughout the film correlates with box office success. However, it does not necessarily correlate to quality.
I wonder if, as many theorists suggest, the attention spans of high consumers of media are decreasing, and we will see those formulas speed up over time.

This is really timely as I was discussing a phenomenon with a friend the other day. I’ve been going back and watching films I remember as being really entertaining from my youth (80’s). When I watch those same movies now, they seem REALLY slow and take forever for something to actually happen. Not sure if this is a trick of memory or a loss of attention span on my part!

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